


Thy Kingdom Come

by sweetmeats



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Genre: Cannibalism (Mentioned), Death, Gen, breeding (implied), rape (implied)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:56:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetmeats/pseuds/sweetmeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For thine is the kingdom,<br/>The power, and the glory,<br/>For ever and ever...</p><p>Slice of life drabbles from various eras of the Citadel's existence and the reign of The Immortan Joe. Piecemeal and self indulgent, picking and choosing what I consider canon outside of the film. Rape and breeding references due to source material, nothing explicit but keep an eye on the tags!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We are the hollow men

**Author's Note:**

> A very loud shoutout to @ravenousgrue with whom I developed most of these ideas and whose sad dad stuff inspires me daily. Ty friend ~

Corpus was born with Jupiter in the twelfth house under the hospital’s fluorescent lights; he was one of the last babies to do so. He was given his first scar before he was given a name.

Joe couldn’t remember his mother and told himself he didn’t know what she’d had the boy christened. He had fancied as a young man that he could grow old as his sons grew strong, but strong Corpus would never be, and old he grew still.

The boy grew up to be other things; cunning, cruel, and calculating, with a level head on his slight shoulders. His mother’s patience had taken root in him along with his father’s ambition. But the pride that swelled in Joe's chest could never outgrow the bitterness in his eyes.

Corpus adapted better than the others. His time in the Old World was short and sterile and he didn’t dwell on it. His life had been all but free of television, Coca Cola, and birth mothers, and the wastes didn’t bother him. Sometimes he listened to his father saying that he’d been born by the sea and fancied the old man a liar. He tended to what his father forgot, took over the Citadel when something shine came along to take over his fancies, and wondered quietly what the world had put its faith in to.

———

Scabrous was hailed as a newborn king; as his mother laboured the distant sky rained fire. Corpus had been tending to necessities during his brother’s birth, he was old enough and there’d been enough stillborns that this didn’t excite him. If anything, his father’s breeding program made him feel replaceable.

He didn’t share the fact and he didn’t meet the eyes of the linen clad rabbits that were ushered past his offices. The Immortan was beginning to reek of desperation.

Joe was blind to his eldest’s criticism and to the boredom in the Organic’s eyes. The infant he held bawling in his arms was his legacy, hard won through fire and blood and the ash of the old world that he’d turned to gold.

The mother’s light was fading and Miss Giddy was the only one to take note. She pricked it into her skin between the ring and middle finger on her left hand. She was not permitted to bury her.

Scrotus was bright as an infant and receptive to the mothering of his many nursemaids. He ate well and his eyes gleamed and his father was beside himself. He added three more to his harem, eager to replicate this success, and ran weekly strategy sessions to expand the empire he’d built further into the wastes, perhaps erect a sister Citadel for his son to take over. The People Eater received a pistol to the temple for suggesting that Kalashnikov hold the post until Scrotus came of age, and soon squabbles brought their meetings to an end.

The People Eater had been a fortunate opportunist who ran into Joe’s favor and he was eagerly reminded of the fact as time dragged on. At some point he’d stopped looking for handouts and become a integral part of The Immortan’s operation. Neither of them were getting what they’d expected from their alliance.

Kalashnikov had been different, had been his friend, had seen him before the world had. Their friendship crumbled under the weight of their empire. The Immortan accused insubordinate jealousy, Kalashnikov saw an ego bloated with irresponsible self indulgence. They rarely spoke, and somehow the Bullet Farm’s morse code came across terse.

Joe soothed his nerves with the thought of one heir secured and many to come. Expanding his kingdom became less of a concern once he realized that there was precious little to overtake. Sand was cheap real estate, he had no need for more of it.

For a blink of an eye in the blazing desert sun, Joseph Moore saw the parched earth coming up roses.


	2. Prodigal Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Prodigal" meaning "wastefully extravagant".
> 
> Scabrous Scrotus' time at the Citadel with no regard for what the canon timeline may be.

The long awaited babe was raised with every luxury at his disposal and could never want for the attention of his doting father. His uncles were wary of him and his nannies wouldn’t meet his eyes. He spoke with his brother candidly and with his father sweetly. He cast his roots far and shallow like a weed.

Scabrous Scrotus grew from cherubic infant to haunted youth. His eyes were his mother’s and they were empty. There were no house cats to torment so he turned on his caretakers; three dead by his hand before he reached his tenth year. 

The Imperators knew better than to caution the Immortan and Corpus’ gentle suggestions fell on deaf ears. Scrotus felt unnoticed in the wake of the Citadel’s fear.

 

He slunk off to the War Boys’ garages before his father deemed him old enough and picked fights with the eldest. They would have taught him for free, it would have been an honor, but he shed blood for his training. Theirs more than his, and more than was necessary. Joe's reprimands were half-hearted and ineffective.

 

“He rides eternal,” Scrotus had said when asked the whereabouts of one Axle, who he’d become friends with.

“Shiny and chrome,” he’d said, punctuated with the rattle of teeth in his pockets. 

 

He festered like an untended wound and fell from the Allfather’s graces. But he was still kept in his shadow, still a strong, healthy son with the rugged good looks of his father’s youth. He made his sparring partners aim for his face. He shaved off his curls.

When he grew to a young man of fifteen Scrotus was given a place in his father’s front lines and a war party of his own. He’d learned eagerly from War Boys and Imperators and been given enough time on the Immortan’s knee to know how his greatest wars were won. His thirst for blood blossomed and didn’t care which side’s losses quenched it.

Dying under Scabrous’ command was nearly guaranteed and the War Boys flocked to him for it. A crowd muscled its way onto his truck every morning to have the shining gates forced open for them. He was viciously cruel and demanded too much; he was the son of God come to deliver them.

Joe’s first real warning came then, when he finally felt threatened. He bellowed and demanded and loomed the three inches he still had over his son whose brown eyes stayed empty under his ire. The Immortan had never thought before to hit his child but Scrotus’ head bounced off his wall that day. The boy laughed from his crumpled heap on the floor and let blood pour out from the gaps in his smile.

He crawled towards his father on his hands and knees to dribble on his boots and earned a steel toe in the chest for it. 

 

“Get up,” the Immortan had demanded, disgust cracking his voice.

 

“This isn’t what you want,” Scrotus had asked from his back, head arched all the way back against the floor to face him, blood running down the back of his throat, “Daddy?”

 

His wet victorious laughter followed his enraged father down the hall and into the open air. 

He’d stayed drooling blood on the floor until he could no longer hear heavy footsteps and wondered if it was the broken sternum or the sheer terror that had made him wet himself. Finally he’d barked for someone to clean up his mess and giggled down a mile of tunnels for a shot of something like morphine.

 

Rictus was born in Scrotus’ sixteenth year and all the hope he’d brought to the wastes was transferred to him. He’d sullied his chances at godhood and the new infant wasn’t to blame. He told Corpus as much and the elder had given a grim and knowing nod. Neither were allowed to see the healthy newborn and neither were oblivious enough to be hurt. The Immortan’s paranoia was halfway inevitable and halfway warranted; the brothers held no hope for their family’s new addition.

For a time his new son softened the Immortan’s heart and the roses threatened to return to his horizons. Children had a way with hope and Joe had a way with children. He resumed speaking to Scrotus and his two eldest were now in regular attendance at the meetings he held with his allies. The Citadel’s forces plowed further into Buzzard territory, until Russian curses had to be hurled from beyond the horizon, from where they (and more importantly, bullets, arrows, and hand grenades) couldn’t reach Joe’s empire.

 

The final straw came in Scrotus’ seventeenth year, not a moment too soon. 

The Vault door was open with his father inside, a honey-haired girl in his lap at the piano and two more cowering beside him. One trembled in fear while the other held deathly still with an arm around her Sister. The hatred that burned in her eyes made them glint from all the way across the Vault; they cast out their own sparks moreso than they reflected light. And then the Immortan turned his head and she was sweet softness again. 

Scrotus’ smile was ugly enough that he didn’t care to show it but he fancied that he would have, for her. She’d be dead or cast out within the month and no one would remember her. Her vitriol would be swept up by the desert wind and sent to poison fertile soil and sour fresh spring water. One way or another the Immortan’s influence would spread.

 

He leaned against the Vault’s passageway until he caught the honey haired girl’s eye. He’d caught his father’s as well and he pictured popping the little jelly sack off his hook and feeding the gooey mess to the sharks for free.

Joe’s skin prickled and his eyebrows raised. His family had been a complicated affair, and he’d never been keen on his children interacting with their mothers, or their sisters. It tended to make a bigger mess of things, he’d found, for the mothers at least.

 

“Auntie,” Scrotus had said lecherously, leering at what wasn’t his.

 

Joe saw him, then, eyes hollow in the afternoon sun, and saw clearly for the first time what had been whispered in his ear since the boy had first stood. That bitch had birthed him an usuper and denied him an heir.

He saw the potential of his future unfold and his middle son’s lopsided grin was a dagger between his ribs. The boy would kill him, and eat him piece by piece.

He didn’t want his power and he didn’t need his troops. He’d kill him for a mouthful of God’s flesh and he would raze everything he’d built… everything he’d meant for him. Not for the first time, The Immortan felt the world crash around his shoulders. 

The boy he’d forced the world to give him had been twisted into a man in his father’s image. He was the poison and Joe was the wound and they’d aggravated each other for long enough, the one seeping the other oozing, the both of them necrotizing everything they touched.

 

He was sent to Gas Town because the People Eater had been asking for a competent assistant for years now. Because a godking does not kill his son. Because this one would find a way to die elsewhere, as he knew was being asked of him.

 

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I became unbelievably fond of Scrotus as I wrote this which is sort of embarrassing since he's sort of entirely an OC I guess. Anyway this is really disjointed and I'm having fun.


	3. Ceteris paribus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "“It is only by enlarging the scope of one’s tastes and one’s fantasies, by sacrificing everything to pleasure, that the unfortunate individual called Man, thrown despite himself into this sad world, can succeed in gathering a few roses among life’s thorns” - Marquis de Sade
> 
> Character study/chronicling of The People Eater himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please mind the updated tags!! This gets a li'l gross!! Ty again to @ravenousgrue whose head canon I stole ~

The People Eater came from nothing and to nothing he would return. Once he’d leeched enough from the world he liked to think that he’d collapse in on himself and take it all down with him. Into the unfathomable depths of deficit that his absence would create. It was his duty and his pleasure to calculate loss, and he tended to his figures lovingly.

 

He had watched the world fall down and tallied the shifting sands until God found a need for his services.

 

Moore he’d been then, with Kalashnikov at his hip. They’d been young and he’d been younger and neither had asked his name. Colonel and Major and an anonymous informant that spoke with a blackened tongue. He’d hoarded secrets for years and found just the right pair to offer them to, at exactly the right price.

 

Old world names had a way of raising the dead; he never used his. The People Eater was an accurate enough summation and an imposing enough moniker. He had learned years before he assumed the title that no one on earth was any more or less than the sum of their parts. Their wholes and their holes were equally appraisable and easily partaken in. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and the whole world could be neatly accounted for in two long rows.

 

The oil refinery near the overtaken Citadel was not his want nor his negotiated prize but he was given custody regardless. It was an honor to be kept close enough to God’s light to feels its warmth. It felt like a tightening noose.

 

He fancied himself a libertine and he was well on his way to dying like one. The gout had come along at about the same time as the prion disease by which point the diabetic gangrene had long since set in. He was a ruined man lording over a hole in the ground, which he figured was preferable to doing so however many thousands of feet above it. _He_ , at least, knew himself.

 

And what he knew better and loved more were his figures. He counted meticulously and recorded diligently and he had no illusions. Dirty money always needed counting, hiding, and managing, and he didn't mind the stains it might leave on his heart or his hands. Of the three things it could damage he had never found use for his heart. If a hole in his chest could be pulled wide enough and his fingers could hold the knife steady enough, he would enjoy a last supper of it as the light faded.

 

The Old World had offered him limited opportunities, his skill came with no real power. He was doomed to be close to it without ever touching it, always by a side or in a shadow. Necessary but largely unnoticed, and that was no way to live.  There was room to sprawl in this new world, and his subservience was a small price to pay.

 

The People Eater's position of influence provided violent delights with no foreseeable ends. The world he and his brothers had left in the dust behind them was no longer weighing on their shoulders, and so they hoarded its shards beneath them and danced in the flames. The beginning was sweet, indulgence without end and abundance beyond reason. Unforgettable because it had never been unquantifiable, never for him. 

 

In the Old World the People Eater had never been a God fearing man and the Wasteland gave him no reason to start, but he knew his debt and pledged his loyalties accordingly. He ran the Immortan's books and enjoyed the spoils of his wars. Joe Moore climbed to the top of the ladder and claimed ascension and worried away the decades carving his mark into corpses and dry earth. The People Eater had no such fancies, and lived better for it. He built an army and an arsenal for when he would need to lend them and found that after the first decade he owed no one any favors. His position was secured and his means were guaranteed. He often thought that he was the only man left on Earth who could claim he was happy.

 

Scabrous Scrotus was made his ward in his seventeenth year, an exile under the guise of a partnership. Young as he was, he had found a better way to live in the Wastes than his father; as a leech on the side of the world instead of an apex predator. You killed just as much and you worried less over it. He grew into the man that his father had been when The People Eater had met him, though he did his very best to stave off the good looks. Six and some odd feet of broken teeth, empty eyes, and murderous intent. Talking to him felt like pulling the pin off a hand grenade and the People Eater liked him just fine. He was a man who could appreciate the People Eater's exacting tastes and contribute his own. They would never call themselves friends and the People Eater repurposed his corpse once he found it. 

 

Of anyone who'd known him, People Eater felt Scrotus' death most keenly, though as a dull ache in his bowels.  Scrotus had understood the beauty of the Wasteland, one of the only men he'd met to do so. It was all temporary, it'd been raised and set to fall away and scatter on the wind. Before it did, anything was possible.

 

His indulgences threatened to cast him out of the Immortan's favor, and there was no Scabrous for him to be apprenticed under. The Wastes provided, as they tended to do. He had decided secretly that the End had been kind to him because he knew how to navigate it. Decadence in a world where there was no one left to define it and only a handful who could conceptualize it, that was the true and righteous path and he had stayed the course. In return, the desert had given him a girl when he'd needed one.

 

Quiet, tall, and reedy, with tar smeared over her flaming red hair. She had deft hands and a head for numbers and he almost considered keeping her. But she was too pretty to waste with not enough meat on her bones, so off to the Citadel she was sent with her hair plaited down her back and a lie poured into her ear. She'd turned to him from the window of the truck she was put in, caught his eye from the other side of a pit where he hadn't even intended to look. Their gaze held steady until they were specks on each others horizons.

 

The People Eater called an Imperator over from the tankard he was inspecting.  "The girl I sent, what was her name?"

 

The other man frowned as he tried to remember, annoyed at having been interrupted and halfway suspecting the distraction was a purposeful one.

 

He squeezed his eyes shut in concentration, "Capable," he said once he'd opened them, "gave 'er name as 'Capable'."

 

The People Eater laughed. She'd have to be.

 

 


End file.
